The World - News from May 14, 1989

Apartheid was officially banned in Namibia, keeping to a U.N. independence timetable that designated May 13 as the day when South African-inspired laws discriminating by race should be scrapped. However, South African and U.N. officials say it will be about six weeks before all apartheid-related laws are repealed. For example, town councils, school education, health services and the national pension scheme are still racially segregated. Meanwhile, South African-led army and paramilitary police forces returned to their bases, ending searches for fighters of the South-West Africa People’s Organization. The rebels entered Namibia on April 1, just as the U.N.-backed independence plan was getting under way.